A new study shows that the presumed conflict between science and religion is largely imaginary. But it doesn’t mean there is perfect harmony between them – which is no bad thing
What are you mistaken about? What fact or figure about life in Britain today are you likely to have completely wrong?
Chances are, it’ll be about Muslims. On average, we think that Muslims comprise 17 per cent of the British population. The real answer is around five. Alternatively, it could be the unemployed. Britons think that around 18 per cent of people are unemployed and looking for work; the true figure is about 4 per cent. We think about a quarter of the population are immigrants; it’s actually 11 per cent. We overestimate the level of crime, the number of single parents and the number of pensioners in the future, and we think our prisons are fuller than they are.
Ignorance – or, to put it more generously, misperception – is nothing to be proud of, though we might get a crumb of comfort from the fact that we are far from the worst at this game. According to the polling company, Ipsos Mori, which has been measuring public misperception for a decade, the British are, in fact, one of the most accurate nations when it comes to such things. We stand fifth in a list of 37 countries. Much higher than the French, anyway.
